Winter fishing has been hit or miss thus far on the Little E. I can count 2 good outings that have been above average, with today being one of those days. Fishing opportunities have been limited with the amount of snowy cold days we have had, but it looks like those days are finally coming to an end and spring is on its way (knock on wood).
I haven’t done much nymphing this year, and instead have focused on fishing streamers with my new medium action 8’ 1/2” 5 wt Sage Trout LL. It’s a fantastic rod to fish our river with, but it doesn’t hurt to carry a 10 ft 4 wt to Euro Nymph some of the deeper runs with. When taking this approach, I like to start by nymphing the run, pick up whatever fish are willing, and then run a streamer through it. With that said, I’ve changed my approach on the streamers I’ve been using, due to a recent study conducted in our river that determined sculpins and crayfish are a substantial part of a trout’s diet in the Little E. We found that to be especially true today. Jon fished black buggers and I fished a new dirt brown prototype crawdad streamer I’ve been messing around with, as well as the classic gray and white minnow pattern. The fish just seemed to be on today as we made our way up the Catch and release. We caught a lot of Little Elkhart naturally reproduced browns, as well as some browns from our stocking efforts this past spring. In addition, we caught a couple of nice sized holdover rainbows that survived the summer. Most fish took Jon’s bugger, until he added a dropper and then started catching them on both flies. I switched back and forth from my grey and white minnow to the crawdad streamer, and even fished an articulated sculpin that picked up a few fish. We fished our way up to the confluence, and then checked out a small tributary that was previously unfishable due to the prior landowners. We made our way back down quickly covering water as we went and found a nice brown to end the day. Between the 2 of us we found 16 browns and rainbows, and missed many more. Jon outfished me by the way!
The Catch and Release water from Spring St to County Road 43 is open until turkey season, which begins on April 22 and runs until May 10. Make sure to get out and fish while you can! The water is about perfect right now and should only improve with the rain forecasted tonight. The fish are hungry and willing to eat streamers and nymphs, as long as you keep your retrieve slowwwww on the streamers, and keep your nymphs drag free and “in the zone.” Letting your streamer hang for up to 10 seconds in the fishiest part of the run can make or break your day.
If you’ve never fished our waters and are looking to cut the learning curve, give us a shout and we will get you dialed in.
Flies To Try:
-Streamers: Low Fat Minnow, Grey and White Clouser, Buggers (Black, Olive, White, and Rust), Leeches both Black and Olive, Small Sex Dungeons, Small Scoblins, and Slump Busters in Black, Olive, or Rust.
-Nymphs: Bishops, Tungsten Surveyors, Dutchies, San Juan, Mop flies, and Pheasant Tails.
-NC
